Old Friends and Bookends
by abracadabra94
Summary: An angry blonde, an oblivious boy having the time of his life at NERD camp, and a best friend who wants more than anything to set things right. Seddie from Carly's point of view.
1. Tacomania

**Hi. So I know I haven't posted anything in a while. Sorry. I didn't really have anything to write about until this whole Seddie-arc thing was over. To be honest, I'm kind of glad Sam and Freddie broke up. *Ducks chair. Stands up and continues speech.* I didn't like how sappy they were. I still think Dan is awesome, but I felt like their relationship was everything that Seddie wasn't supposed to be. Just my opinion. Anywho, now I get to go back to writing Seddie fanfiction, which makes me extremely happy. Yay.**

**So here's the new story I'm writing. It's in Carly's POV, just to shake things up. I'm not sure how long it will be. In fact, I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with it, but it will be Seddie. So…yeah. On with the story.**

**And yes, the title was stolen from a Simon and Garfunkel song.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly. Or Simon. Or Garfunkel. I don't even own a bookend.**

The sky opened just as we reached the Seattle city limits. I rolled the windows back up before the rain could completely ruin the car's interior, turned on the windshield wipers, and ventured a cautious glance at the angry blonde slouching in the passenger's seat beside me. The fury in her eyes was almost scarier than the lightning bounding through the clouds and the booming thunder put together.

The storm got worse the further we drove. After about forty-five minutes, I finally decided that I'd best pull off the interstate and wait out the storm in the safety of a nice, cozy restaurant. Sam would be starving anyway, and I knew from years of experience that being hungry was a surefire way to make my best friend angry. And if she was already angry, oh boy.

I took the next exit into Tacoma and asked Sam what she wanted to eat.

"As long as we're in Tacoma, might as well see if they can live up to the name," she said. I raised my eyebrows. "Tacos, duh."

Normally she'd make me chuckle with something clever like that, but the complete lack of enthusiasm in her now monotonous voice made the words seem a lot less funny. Regardless, I did as she said and pulled into the parking lot of a tiny restaurant with a flashing neon sign outside that said in bright, garish letters: "Tacomania."

The restaurant wasn't especially nice or even all that clean, but the owner still wasn't happy about Sam ringing out her wet hair on the old tile floor. Of course she'd refused to use the umbrella I offered her upon getting out of the car. It took quite a lot of arguing on my part to convince them to let us stay and get something to eat, and even then I had to promise we'd leave as soon as possible. Apparently they thought the ferocious and dripping blonde might scare their other customers away.

We took our seats at a bright blue booth at the very back of the room and ordered our food: a plate of tacos for Sam, a taco salad for myself, and two Peppi Colas. The wire-thin, middle-aged waitress with the name tag that said "Irene" glared briefly at Sam, then nodded and headed to the back with our orders.

As soon as Irene was out of sight, Sam grabbed and ripped open one of the packages of hot sauce in the basket near the salt and pepper and began to draw with it right onto the plastic table. I tried to keep myself from scolding her for a while, but when she reached for her fourth packet I finally spoke up, unable to hold back any longer.

"I don't think the waitress will be very happy to see you've wasted four packets of hot sauce just to make another mess for her to clean up," I said as casually as I could.

"Not my fault their hot sauce packets are so small," she said, ripping open the fourth packet and continuing to work on her masterpiece. Her eyes never left the table.

I sighed. It was useless. Sam was just too stubborn to tame. I used to be able to keep her under control a little, but as we grew older it became clearer and clearer that there was really only one person who even had a chance at getting her to cooperate, and he was eight-hundred miles away. Not that he'd be any good now anyway. He was, after all, the main cause of Sam's anger, and the reason we were stuck in the dirty little restaurant at all.

I'd given up on reprimanding Sam, but I still wanted to try to keep some sort of conversation going. I thought that maybe if I could get her talking she would finally open up about her feelings. "Whatcha' drawing?" I asked, trying to sound cheerful.

"Stuff," she mumbled, eyes still glued to her work as she reached for yet another packet of hot sauce.

"What kind of stuff?"

"Just scribbles." I leaned a little closer and tilted my head to the side. From the looks of it, the careful lines drawn in the spicy red sauce weren't just scribbles. In fact, they looked astonishingly similar to the visage of a boy with fluffy hair and a cocky half-smile. I pretended I didn't notice this and changed the subject to anything I could think of. The weather. Spencer's latest creation. Spencer's latest destruction. Ms. Briggs's crazy pointy boobs. The Middle East. Anything. But it was clear Sam wasn't even listening. And to be honest, neither was I.

"Here you go," said Irene, setting our plates down in front of us a few minutes later. She set Sam's plate right on top of her drawing. Sam blinked at the plate, looking dazed and confused, before shaking her head and digging into her meal.

"I'm sorry she ruined your picture," I said.

"S'okay," she shrugged, swallowing a mouthful of taco. "Like I said, it was just scribbles. Nothing too important. Don't worry about it Carls." She turned her head towards the wall and for a second I thought I saw her hand brush something off of her cheek, but it could've been my imagination. We finished the rest of our meal in silence.

The storm still hadn't let up by the time we left the restaurant. If anything, it was even worse. But seeing as how everyone who worked in the restaurant was already mad at us and the waitress somehow still hadn't noticed the sticky red mess on the table, I decided it would be a good idea to get out of there before we got ourselves into even more trouble. We could always stop at a convenient store or something until the rain stopped.

As we stepped outside and rounded the corner of the restaurant, making our way back to the car parked on the left side of the building, I was suddenly filled with an inexplicable sense of dread. I didn't know what it could possibly be, but I just knew something bad had happened. It would be just my luck.

My suspicions were confirmed as soon as I saw my little red car and the enormous tree branch lying on top of it. It seemed like this storm was out specifically to get me. Then again, I wasn't completely convinced that this wasn't the work of disgruntled restaurant employees. I never did trust that Irene. I jogged to the flattened vehicle, only to slip and fall in the mud on my way there.

"Great," I huffed, picking myself up and assessing the damage. My clothes were ruined, my umbrella was broken, and my left arm was skinned pretty badly. My car was much worse. "What else could go wrong?" I yelled up at the dark sky.

I really shouldn't have asked, because my question was answered as soon as I turned around to discuss the next plan of action with my friend.

"Oh. That's what else can go wrong," I said to myself, trying to keep calm. I wasn't doing a very good job. I looked frantically back and forth, turned all the way around, and squinted through the downpour, but my eyes only met an empty parking lot. Thunder boomed all around me, and I fell back into the mud, my head on my knees, sobbing.

Sam Puckett was nowhere to be found.


	2. Ana

**Hello! Sorry this chapter took a wee bit longer than I intended. :( But here it is anyway!**

**And just because I'm too much of a fangirl to let this go unsaid, happy birthday to John Lennon. John, you were full of awesome and the world is definitely less good without you.**

**John Lennon is kind of my idol by the way…just in case you couldn't tell.**

**Also, what is it with me always putting cool old ladies in my stories? Hopefully Ana lives up to the success of her predecessors, Grandma Benson and Moira.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly, but Irene and Ana are mine.**

"_The number you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave a message af-"_

I ended the call as, for the fourth time, Sam didn't pick up. I'd already left her three voicemail messages and several texts, and I figured leaving another wouldn't do any good. Wrapping my free arm around the arm holding my phone and flattening myself even more against the cool concrete restaurant, I scrolled through my contacts.

There was Triple E; I'd already tried them in between my phone calls to Sam though, and they said they wouldn't tow during a tornado watch. I could always call Spencer, but I hadn't exactly told him about my little trip with Sam. He was spending the weekend camping with Socko and Socko's grandmother, and I was supposed to be under the watchful eye of Mrs. Benson across the hall…only I convinced her that Spencer's trip was cancelled and that she didn't need to look after me after all. It seemed like a good plan at the time, but now, standing under the small overlap of the roof of the tiny taco place, I wished that I had just tried to convince Spencer to take us to San Francisco. Then there was Grandad, but Yakima was more than two hours away. Not to mention that fact that he would definitely be much angrier with me than Spencer would.

I finally decided to call Freddie. He was so smart; maybe he'd know what to do. And for some reason beyond anyone's comprehension, he knew Sam better than anybody. He always had, even before they'd started dating. If anyone would know where she could have run off to, it would be Freddie. I pressed the call button and put the phone to my ear.

The phone rang once. Then twice. Three times. Four times. Then…

"_Freddie Benson here."_

"Freddie! It's Carly. Listen, I'm stuck in Tacoma and-"

"_I can't come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can! Um, and if this is Mom…please don't call in a search party again. Beep!"_

I sighed and hung up. Freddie had been my last hope. Sure, there were more people in my contacts, but other than Spencer, no one else who I was close enough to that they might help me out. Well, maybe Gibby, but he was on some new conspiracy theory kick that week and had decided to get rid of his cell phone. Apparently, cell phones were really space ships with tiny aliens in them that would make themselves sound just like your friends so they could find out your secrets and use them to take over the world. I'd walked into my living room just a few days before to see Gibby, sledge hammer held high and smashed phone on the floor near his feet, yelling that he wasn't going to let any stupid, smelly, alien scum steal his secrets.

Reluctantly, I went back to my contact list and found Spencer's name. I knew there was no other option. I took a deep breath and pushed the call button just as the screen went black.

"No," I said aloud to my phone. "No, no, no! Don't do this to me now, phone! Don't die on me now! _Please _don't die on me now!" I pressed the 'on' button and the screen lit up for a second, only to go dark again before I could even make it to the contact menu.

"It's okay," I told myself, trying to keep my breathing even. "Everything's alright. I have a charger. I just have to get the charger out of my car, and-"

My car. Which was smashed to bits with rain pouring relentlessly down into it. And I'd left my charger plugged into the cigarette lighter.

In a flash of anger, I threw my phone across the parking lot, where it landed in a large mud puddle with a sickening splash. I knew that if I ever got out of this mess I'd regret that, but at the moment I really didn't care. I didn't care about the phone or the car or my muddy, ruined clothes. All I wanted was to go back in time and stop all of this from ever happening. Forget pride and dignity; I had to admit it eventually. This was all my fault.

Hugging my arms to try to retain some warmth, I started weighing my other options. I was on my own now, and the way I saw it, I really only had two choices left. Either I could walk until I found a kindly bus driver who would take pity on me and let me ride all the way back to Seattle for free (I'd only taken enough money for lunch into the restaurant; the rest had been in my car), or I could stay where I was. Just then, lightening hit another tree only a short distance away from the one that had dropped its limb on my car, and I rushed into the restaurant, mud and all.

"I thought I told you to get out of here!" Irene shrieked in her shrill, southern accent before the door even had a chance to close behind me.

"Please ma'am, a limb fell on my car and my phone died and-"

"Does it _look _like I care?" Her stenciled eyebrows rose underneath her cherry-red bangs, and her thin lips were set in a decided scowl. "Now look. I'm gonna count to five, and when I'm done, I want your filthy, muddy behind out of my restaurant! One…"

"If you'd please just hear me out…"

"Two…"

"…A limb fell on my car and I have nowhere else to go…"

"Three…"

"…And now my friend is missing and I don't know where she went…"

"Four…"

"…And I just-"

"Let the girl be, Irene."

The tall, wiry woman spun around so fast it was a wonder she didn't fall in her cheap-looking high heels. She glared for a moment at the tiny Hispanic woman who had seemingly appeared from nowhere, but the woman just stared back, dark eyes twinkling behind thick coke-bottle glasses. Eventually, Irene gave up and left the room with an indignant 'humph.'

"Um…thank you." I said.

"Sit," said the woman, barely glancing at me as she made her way towards a tiny booth near the back of the restaurant and took a seat. I hesitantly joined her at the other side of the booth and tried to stop shivering.

"Here," she said, handing me the fluffy, white towel that had been draped over her arm since she had first entered the room.

"Thanks…again." I took the towel and wrapped it around my cold body. Immediately, I felt a lot better.

"Wait here." Without any explanation, the woman suddenly got up and hobbled to the kitchen. A moment later she returned with two steaming cups. She sat back down and handed one of the cups to me. I looked down at the swirling brown liquid and instantly recognized the familiar, heavenly aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

"I don't have any money," I said reluctantly.

The woman shook her head. "On the house."

"You're sure?"

"Drink," she said, raising her own coffee cup to her wrinkled lips.

I wasn't sure if it was really safe to take a drink from a complete stranger, but the woman _had_ just saved me from the wrath of Irene. Besides, she looked harmless enough. She was a short little thing; so short her feet didn't quite touch the ground when she sat. From the steel-gray hair braided down her back and the deep lines in her light brown skin, she appeared to be very old, but behind her glasses her black eyes were young and full of energy.

I decided to throw caution to the wind and try the coffee. It didn't look like I'd be getting out of there anytime soon anyway. I raised the cup to my mouth and took a cautious sip. The coffee warmed my insides and made me feel better almost immediately.

"You'll have to excuse my daughter-in-law," the woman said. I looked up to see her looking back towards the kitchen. From the tiny window in the door, I could just make out the shape of a tall, thin woman pacing back and forth. "I know she comes across as sullen and rude," the woman continued, "but she doesn't mean to. It is just her way. And life has been especially difficult for her lately."

"Irene is your daughter-in-law?"

The woman nodded. "I wasn't very happy when my son first brought this rude girl home many years ago," she whispered, leaning close, a half-smile playing on her lips. "But she has grown on me. Plus she knows not to cross me, or my son will be upset with her. She may act like she cares about nothing and no one, but I know she cares for my son. She just has a funny way of showing it."

"You said life has been difficult for her lately?" I asked. "Why's that? If you don't mind my asking."

"My son used to make good money as a construction worker in Olympia. He made enough that Irene was able to retire early, which made her happy. But then the company started losing money and he and several other workers were laid off. They were too proud to move in with me and live off of my retirement money. But after several weeks of too little food, piling bills, and no luck finding new jobs, I made them live with me, because I knew if I didn't, they would starve. But I am old, and old people have health problems that require expensive pills and doctor visits. My retirement money was already getting to be too little to cover my own expenses, and it was certainly not enough to cover two others' as well.

"They eventually found this old house for sale and turned it into a combined taco restaurant and home. The alcove with the couch I sleep on and the bathroom are behind the kitchen. My son and his wife sleep in the attic. We've been here for two months, but Irene still has not been able to adjust."

I looked down at the coffee cup cradled in my hands and quickly set it down on the table. "I…I don't know what to say. I'm so sor-"

"No," said the woman firmly, scooting my coffee cup back towards me. "There is no need to apologize for something that is no one's fault." I nodded, thinking that there was more to Irene's obedience of her mother-in-law than not wanting to upset her husband. For such a tiny, frail person, the old woman carried a big presence. She seemed kind enough, but also a little intimidating. Like disappointing her could make even the most callous, uncaring people disappointed in themselves.

"I would let you use our phone," the woman continued, "but there isn't one here. None of us have cell phones, and the landline has been broken for weeks. I think that may have made Irene even angrier when you asked to use the phone. She was angry because she was embarrassed about not having one."

"Oh. I'm so-" I started, but stopped when I saw the woman's eyes warning me not to say it. "No apologizing for things that aren't my fault," I said. "Right."

The woman nodded. "Of course, throwing your phone into a puddle was your fault." I looked up from my coffee in surprise. "It was also stupid. But what's done is done, and you've harmed no one but yourself."

"You saw that?"

"The storm woke me from my nap. I went to the window to watch it, but instead of rain pouring into an empty parking lot, I found a young girl crying in a puddle. I was about to go see about you, but then you got up and went under the shelter to use your phone. I thought everything would be well again soon, but then you threw your phone and I knew you were not well at all." She paused. "Why did you do that?"

"Oh," I said, embarrassed. "Um, it died."

The woman smirked. "Fair enough. Now for bigger questions. Why were you crying, and who did you need so badly to call?"

I sighed. "That's a long story."

"We have time. And you look like you need to talk."

I shook my head. "I don't really want to talk right now."

"I did not say you looked like you wanted to talk. I said you looked like you needed to."

"But…but I don't even know you!" I said, getting a little angry. "How can I just spill my guts to someone I don't even know?"

The woman thought about it for a while, then nodded. "You're right." She extended her hand. "I'm Ana Rodriguez. And you are?"

"Carly," I said, taking her wrinkled hand. "Carly Shay."

"Carly," she smiled warmly. "Now we are not strangers."

For the first time in what seemed like forever, I actually laughed. I stopped myself quickly and looked down at my coffee, a little ashamed at how I could be laughing when Sam was missing.

"You know Carly," said Ana, "it's okay to laugh, even when something bad has happened. In fact, it is probably the best time to laugh. Sometimes laughter is a better medicine than anything a doctor could give you."

"Ana," I said slowly, not taking my eyes off of the coffee cup, "throwing my phone wasn't the only thing that's happened recently that was my fault." I paused for a deep breath. "My best friend is missing, and it's all my fault." I looked up. Ana didn't say anything, but the look she gave me spoke loud and clear: _Go on. Speak your mind. You will not be judged._

Taking another breath, I decided to tell Ana everything. It might not do as much good as she seemed to think, but it was worth a shot. "It's hard to say where things really started going wrong," I explained, "but I guess I should start about seven years ago, when my best friends met each other for the first time…"


	3. Old Friends

**BLARG. Sorry I've taken forty forevers to update. It's been a busy couple of weeks. Hopefully when I get my college apps done things will slow down a bit and I'll be able to update more regularly. **

**And yes, I did steal a scene from a previous story of mine for this story. I liked the way I had Sam and Freddie meet in iPsychic too much to let it go to waste by creating a new way for them to meet every time.**

**Disclaimer: Unfortunately, Nickelodeon doesn't really want high school students going around owning their hit television shows. No iCarly for me. :( Oh well. There's always next year.**

"I met Sam in the third grade. She stole my lunch; I was the only person crazy enough to stand up to her. We were friends from then on. I moved away at the end of the year, but Sam and I kept in touch by phone. By the time we started the sixth grade, we were inseparable. Which was an especially good thing, because the summer before sixth grade was when I moved back to Seattle to live with my older brother, Spencer. Before that I'd moved around a lot with my dad, going between military bases all the time.

"I was pretty happy to move in with Spencer and finally get to stay in one place, but there was one little problem: Freddie Benson's apartment was right across the hall, and he had somehow come to the conclusion that he was absolutely and irreversibly in love with me…"

_**June 24, 2005**_

"_I'm telling you Carls, now that you're back in town, I'm going to make sure you have the time of your life. Just stick with me, kid. We're going to go places_."

"Just promise me nothing illegal," I said into the mouthpiece of the small, purple phone Dad had bought me as a combination 'happy birthday' and 'sorry you won't see me again for a few years' present. "I'd rather not have a criminal record before I turn twelve, and I'm in no mood to bail you out of juvie…again."

"_Hey, that waiter had it coming_," she replied. I could practically see her bored shrug through the cell phone.

"He accidentally took your plate away before you were done so you bit him until he bled!"

"_Oh, it wasn't that bad_."

"He had to get eleven stitches! And a rabies shot!"

"_Ha, yeah, I almost forgot I convinced them I had rabies. Oh the wonders of low-fat whipped cream. I was such a clever third grader_."

I laughed. "So I'll see you at Spencer's apartment in a few?"

"_Um…about that…_"

"Sam, what did you do?"

"_I…might have gotten detention._"

"Detention? But school hasn't even started yet!"

"_Did I mention I failed English and had to go to summer school?_"

"And so you thought it would be a good idea to do something bad when you're already having to spend your summer at school, get detention, and then, during that detention, talk on your cell phone?"

"_Pretty much_."

I rolled my eyes. "What am I going to do with you?"

"_Feed me and love me unconditionally?_"

I couldn't help but laugh. "Always."

"Alright, Carly. We're here." I looked over at my dad, whose face looked stone-cold and mouth was set in a thin line; the same look he got every time he was worried. "Say goodbye to Sam."

Nodding, I told Sam that I'd talk to her later, got out of the car, and looked up at the tall building that was to be my new home. The Bushwell Plaza. Apartment 8C. It had a nice ring to it.

Spencer was ecstatic to see me. His big, goofy grin and multiple bear hugs were a big change from my father's usual stern silence. I had almost forgotten how much I missed my big brother. Still, I knew I'd miss my dad terribly. It was such a mix of emotions that I soon decided to occupy myself by watching _Girly Cow _on TV while Dad and Spencer caught up.

"So how's law school going?" I heard my dad ask Spencer during a commercial break.

"Oh…um…great! It's going great, Dad. Really loving it. It's…it's all just great."

"Well that's…really great," Dad responded. "But Spencer, try not to have _too _much fun at law school. I know there are a lot of smart, pretty girls there, but remember, you have your education to worry about. And now you have Carly to take care of on top of that."

"Don't worry, Dad. There is definitely _no _danger of me becoming romantically distracted by any of my classmates."

"Glad to hear it son," he said, patting Spencer roughly on the back. He didn't seem to notice that Spencer almost fell out of his chair from the force of his strong hand. "Well, I'd better go." He stood up from his chair and extended his hand to Spencer. "I'll see you later, son."

Spencer looked down at his hand for awhile before quietly standing up and wrapping his arms around the colonel's broad shoulders. The larger man blinked in surprise at the sudden gesture; he and Spencer had been on a handshake only basis since Spencer was in middle school. But now, when he knew that our father was getting ready to live on a submarine full time and that we might not see him again for years, Spencer apparently grew bold.

"Bye, Dad," he said, and backed away from the colonel, who hadn't actually hugged him back. I took that as my cue to get up and say goodbye as well.

Dad shifted his eyes towards me as I approached and I noticed a small smile on his lips. "You will take care of Spencer, now won't you Carly?" he whispered, leaning down towards me. "Make sure he doesn't get himself into too much trouble?"

"Hey!" Spencer protested.

I laughed. "I'll try my best," I promised, giving him a quick hug around the waist. He hugged me back for just a second, then let go and stood up straight. With a final salute, he exited the apartment and disappeared behind the door.

Spencer and I stared at the closed door in silence for a moment before I remembered something. "So," I said casually. "You're _sure _the girls at law school aren't the least bit distracting?"

He averted his eyes towards the ceiling and crossed his arms. "Uh, nope. Not in the least."

I smirked. "You dropped out, didn't you?"

He looked back at me suddenly, eyes wide in surprise. "How'd you know that?"

"Please. I'm your sister. You think I don't know when you're lying?"

His eyes narrowed. "Ten bucks if you don't tell Dad."

"Twenty," I said. "And you have to take me out for ice cream."

"Fifteen, and there's a really good smoothie place across the street."

"Hm…I do like smoothies," I said. "Okay. Let my friend Sam sleep over tonight and we have a deal."

"Fine," he sighed, shaking my hand. "It's a deal." He took out his wallet and handed me fifteen dollars. "Um, actually, can I have that money back and pay you later?"

"Why?"

"Because I don't think forty-eight cents and a bus token is enough for smoothies," he said, showing me the inside of his nearly empty wallet.

I rolled my eyes and handed the money back to him. "Okay. But you owe me." Spencer chuckled and started out the door, where I followed close behind.

I had barely stepped into the hallway when the door to the apartment across the hall suddenly flew open. A tall woman with fluffy brown hair and the ugliest blouse I'd ever seen marched out of the apartment, dragging behind her a short boy with hair that was equally fluffy and brown.

"But Mom!" the boy protested. "I don't _need _to go to the doctor!"

"Don't be ridiculous," the woman replied. "Of course you do. You know that you should always go to the doctor when you're sick."

"But I'm not sick!"

"Then why did you cough?"

"Because you put horseradish in my mashed fruit!"

"It clears the sinuses!"

"Yeah, but that doesn't stop it from tasting like-" The boy suddenly stopped yelling and struggling as he caught sight of Spencer and me staring at the two of them from just a few feet away. The boy stared back at us, or, to be more precise, stared at me. His eyes seemed to be glued to my face as though if he looked away for even a second I might spontaneously combust.

"Come along, Freddie," the woman said, not seeming to notice anything unusual except that her son had finally stopped struggling. The boy let himself be led down the hallway, stumbling with every step but never taking his eyes off of me. I waved, but he just kept staring until he and his mother disappeared around the corner of the hallway.

"Well," said Spencer when they were out of earshot. "That was weird."

"Yep," I agreed, and we continued towards the elevator and to the Groovy Smoothie.

I saw the boy many times after that. At first he would always just stand still and stare at me like he did when we first met, but after awhile he worked up the courage to talk to me, and I got to know him fairly well. His name was Freddie Benson. He liked computers and Galaxy Wars. His mother was completely insane. And, as he said more times than I could count, he thought I was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

Freddie was devastated when he finally asked me out and I turned him down, but the boy was persistent. Every time I saw him, he'd ask me again, even though he knew exactly what my answer would be. I felt a little bad about it, especially since he seemed like a nice boy, but as I told him again and again, I didn't like him like that. Finally one day he asked me a question that took me by surprise.

"If you don't like me like that, how do you like me?" He asked me in the hallway one day, after I had turned him down for about the twelfth time.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean, you say you don't like me 'that way' – you know, the _good _way – but that implies that you do like me in _some _way, right?" Suddenly I saw all the hope drain from his face. "Unless…unless you were just saying that."

"No! Freddie, of course I like you. But as a friend, okay?"

"Friend?" he said, lifting his head in surprise. A broad smile slowly spread across his face. "I'm your friend?"

"Um, sure," I said. "Why not?"

His smile grew wider and he threw his arms around me in a tight hug. "Thank you, Carly!" he said. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

"Freddie! Freddie, you have to let go of me now!"

"Oh. Right." He let go, but the smile stayed plastered on his face. "Wow. I have a friend." He shook his head in awe. "Wait until my mom hears!" And with that, he ran back into apartment 8D. "Mom! Mom! Guess what?"

I shook my head and went back into my own apartment to find a thin blonde girl sitting upside down on the couch, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "How'm I s'posed to get my beauty sleep with all of this racket?" she complained grouchily. "What's with all the yelling?"

"You can sleep upside down but you wake up from a little noise across the hall?" I said, ignoring her question.

"Just answer the question, Shay," she said, flipping herself over and sitting on the couch right-side up.

I sighed. "I told Freddie he could be my friend and he kind of spazzed out."

"Freddie? Who's that?"

"You know, Freddie Benson. Short, our age, brown hair, kinda nerdy…you haven't met him yet?"

She shook her head.

That surprised me, but at the same time I figured it was probably for the best. Sam wasn't exactly the nicest person on Earth, and Freddie wasn't exactly the coolest. If they ever did meet, she would torture him for sure.

_**Present**_

"I take it they did eventually meet?" Ana asked, sipping her coffee.

"Not for awhile," I said. "Somehow they managed to avoid meeting each other all summer, even though Sam was a frequent visitor to my house and Freddie constantly roamed the halls of the Bushwell, waiting for me to come out of my apartment so he could 'accidently' bump into me. It wasn't until the day before school started back that they finally couldn't avoid each other any longer…"

_**August 21, 2005**_

"So-o wake up the members of my nation. It's your time to be. There's no chance unless you – SPENCER!" I stopped singing mid-song as I noticed the large bucket sitting in the shower right where I was about to step, a questionable purple goo bubbling inside it.

"YEAH?" Spencer's voice answered from downstairs.

"THERE'S SOME SORT OF PURPLE GOO IN A BUCKET IN THE SHOWER!" I told him, pulling my fluffy pink bathrobe off of the hook on the bathroom door and wrapping it around me tightly.

"GREAT! THE GOO'S FINISHED! I CAN PUT IT ON MY SCULPTURE NOW!" I heard him start up the stairs, but then his footsteps stopped. I wondered what could have stopped him, but at the time I was more concerned with the goo. I told myself that it was nothing to worry about. Spencer would be there soon to take care of it. Besides, it seemed perfectly harmless. It was actually kind of pretty; a slightly luminescent plum color. _Wait, wasn't there less of it a minute ago? _I thought, but then shook my head. The goo couldn't be growing. That was ridiculous.

I put my ear to the bathroom door and thought I heard Spencer talking to someone. Something about Fat Cakes. _Sam must be here, _I thought. I glanced back at the shower just in time to see the goo start to spill over the sides of the container.

"No no no," I said aloud, rushing over to the bucket but at a loss as to what I should do. There was no way I was touching that stuff. "No no no no no. Don't grow. Bad goo! Stop that!" Another purple glob spilled over the side of the bucket.

"SPENCER!" I called. "THE GOO IS GROWING!"

"WELL TELL IT TO STOP GROWING!" Spencer called back.

"I DID, BUT IT DIDN'T LISTEN!"

His groan of exasperation was so loud I heard it all the way upstairs. "HANG ON! I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!" I heard the sound of running up the stairs, and then Spencer was walking into the bathroom.

"I don't see what the big deal is, Carls. I mean it's just a little HOLY MOTHER OF GOO!" Spencer's eyes grew wider as he saw the purple goo that was now threatening to run over the border between the shower and the bathroom floor.

"Told'ya!" I said.

"Carly," he whispered, leaning down towards me slightly but keeping his eyes fixed on the shower. "I'm scared. Do you think it's alive?"

I rolled my eyes, but just then the goo made a noise that sounded strangely similar to moaning, and we both backed up.

"What do we do?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"Well what's the goo made of?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know? You made it!"

"From a make-your-own luminescent goo kit!"

"Where in the world did you get a kit for that?"

"The junkyard."

"Do you still have the instructions?"

"Yeah."

"Well go get them!"

"Right!" He dashed out of the bathroom and reentered a moment later with a folded piece of paper. "Here you go," he said, handing me the instructions.

"Great." I took the instructions from his hand and quickly skimmed over them. "Spencer," I said, trying to keep my voice calm.

"Yeah?"

"Are these instructions in Portuguese?"

"Yeah…" He must have noticed how furious I was because his eyes suddenly went wide again and he started for the door.

"Oh no you don't!" I said, grabbing his shirt sleeve and pulling him away from the door.

"Jeez, when did you get so strong?"

"Here's a better question: WHY ARE THESE INSTRUCTIONS IN PORTUGUESE?"

"I don't know!"

"Well how did you know how to make the goo if you couldn't read the instructions?"

"Um, I guessed?"

I facepalmed. "And there's the problem."

"Look, I know I screwed up, but it's not like OH MY GOO THE GOO IS ON FIRE!"

"WHAT?" I looked towards the shower just in time to see it become engulfed in gooey purple flames.

I ran to the shower and turned the water on high pressure. Cold water rained down on the fizzling purple flames and the fire was out within seconds, no thanks to my supposed guardian. I looked back to where he was standing in the corner, eyes shut tight and hands clutching a roll of toilet paper in front of his chest like a shield.

"You can open your eyes now," I said. "The fire's out."

He cautiously peeked one eye open and then the other. "Whew," he sighed. "That was a close one. And hey, look, the goo stopped growing!"

I looked towards the shower again and, sure enough, the goo was no longer expanding, but softly bubbling in its container. A good bit of it was gone too, apparently disintegrated by the water from the shower. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God."

Spencer nodded. "Welp," he said, heading for the door again. "Glad I could help."

"Hold up!" I said, grabbing his sleeve again.

"Seriously!" he whined as I pulled him away from the door again. "Have you been eating mutant super-spinach for breakfast or am I really just that weak?"

"Spencer, it's been a rough morning. I need to take a shower. Now I'm going to count to ten, and when I'm done, I want this goo out of the shower. One-"

I heard him gulp audibly. "Yes ma'am." He grabbed hold of the bucket and picked it up just as a loud thud sounded from downstairs.

"Spencer?" I asked. "What was Sam doing when you left her to come up here?"

"Sam?" he said. "Oh, that wasn't Sam. That was the kid from across the hall. You know, the short one with the crazy mom?"

"Freddie? What was he doing here?"

"His mom saw me coming home yesterday with groceries and decided that just because I bought taco shells and a few dozen sticks of butter that I wasn't feeding you food that was 'healthy' enough," he raised his hands and made air quotes with his fingers, "and so she sent her son to bring us some green sludge. So I left the green stuff on the counter and told the kid to help himself to some junk food."

"Oh," I said. "Um, Spencer…you did make sure to tell him not to touch the ham, right?"

"Uh…"

"Help!" a voice called from downstairs. We looked at each other for a moment before simultaneously sprinting out of the bathroom.

"Spencer!" the small brunette boy called weakly from underneath an angry-looking blonde as we arrived at the bottom of the steps. "Help!" Spencer and I rushed towards the scene and lifted Sam off of Freddie's back. She continued to kick and struggle, nostrils flared and eyes full of hatred.

"Sam!" I scolded. "Can't Spencer and I leave our living room unattended for five minutes without having to worry that you're going to try and kill our house guests?"

"He tried to eat my ham!" she shouted, gaze still fixed on a whimpering Freddie.

"That's no reason to pounce on the poor boy!"

"Where did you even come from?" Freddie choked out, staring worriedly at Sam.

With one final struggle, Sam managed to break free of mine and Spencer's grasp. We tried to get a hold of her again, but before we could, she was already grasping the collar of the frightened boy, who looked like he might wet his pants at any moment.

"I'm _everywhere_, boy," she growled. "Just remember that next time you think about eating Sam Puckett's ham."

"I-I thought it was the Shay's ham," he stuttered.

"Sam…" I warned, noticing that she looked like she might pounce on him again. She let out a breath and tried to calm herself.

"Since we just met," she said, "I'll let you off easy this time. But next time, remember," she used his collar to pull him closer, "ALL. HAM. BELONGS. TO. ME. And Momma doesn't like it when people touch her ham."

"Ye-yes ma'am."

With a smirk, Sam let go of his collar and walked over to the open fridge, grabbing the ham from its shelf and then making her way back towards us. She reached the hand that wasn't holding the ham into the bucket next to Spencer's feet, and before we could stop her, threw the purple goo at Freddie. It landed on his neat striped shirt with a sickening _splat._

Sam smirked in satisfaction and took a bite of ham before heading for the front door of the apartment. "Later Carls," she said. She glanced over her shoulder at the boy covered in purple goo and smirked again. "Later…dork." And with that she sauntered out of the apartment, ham and all.

It was then that I knew that this was no ordinary event, but one that would change my life forever. My best friend and my next door neighbor didn't just dislike each other; in the few minutes that Spencer and I were upstairs taking care of the goo situation, Sam and Freddie had become sworn enemies.

I didn't know, however, how much their hatred towards each other would affect me. I thought that since they avoided one another so well all summer without even meaning to, surely they could keep it up now that they actually _wanted_ to stay away from each other.

Wrong.

**_Present_**

"Little did I know, but my life was about to get _very_ interesting."


	4. Of Kisses and Fishes

**Happy Un-Daylight Savings Time! Yay for an extra hour of sleep!**

**Disclaimer: No soy dueño de iCarly.**

"What?" said Irene, looking up from the table she was scrubbing. I had just finished telling Ana about the first time Sam and Freddie met when she walked into the room with a soggy dish rag. "Just wiping down the tables," she said. "Go back to whatever you were talking about."

"Anyway," I said, a little uncomfortable now that Ana and I weren't the only ones in the room anymore. "After their first meeting, it seemed like Sam and Freddie just couldn't avoid each other, no matter how hard they tried. The next day was our first day of sixth grade, and Sam and I were surprised to see Freddie at our school. But the fact that we were all going to the same school wasn't the only coincidence."

_**August 22, 2005**_

"Come on Sam. You have to come to school!"

"_But I don't wanna!" _Sam whined through the phone. _"Too early!"_

I readjusted the phone as I continued up the stairs and into the building. "If you come, I'll buy a whole ham just for you and I won't even complain when you eat it with your mouth open. How's that sound Sam?" No answer. "Sam?"

"I'm here!" a voice called behind me. I turned to see my best friend striding through the hallway, her blonde hair tangled and her body clad in a ratty old t-shirt and blue flannel pajama bottoms. Her feet were completely bare. "Where's my ham?"

"Sam, you live like ten minutes away by car! How'd you get here so fast?"

"I spent the night at your place."

"What? But I haven't seen you since you attacked my neighbor yesterday."

"Yeah, well. There was a sock on the door when I got home so I had to leave, and by the time I got back I was too tired from all the walking to deal with your nasty doorman. So I just slept in Spencer's car."

"You were in there the whole time Spencer was driving me to school?"

"Yep. Spencer flipped out when you called a minute ago and I answered. He thought the car had come to life and was angry with him." She laughed. "Good times. Good times."

"Wait," I said. "Why would your mom put a sock on the door?"

"Um…" Sam slung an arm around my shoulders as we walked toward our homeroom. "I'll tell you when you're older."

A minute later we took our seats next to each other in homeroom. Sam immediately unzipped her backpack and pulled out a pair of sneakers, a hairbrush, and a package of beef jerky. I gave her a questioning look as she bit into the jerky before tending to her bed head or bare feet.

"What?" she said. "I skipped breakfast." She hadn't even finished one stick when the thin, wrinkled hand of our new homeroom teacher snatched it away from her.

"No eating in class!" Ms. Briggs snarled and walked away. As soon as the teacher's back was turned, Sam reached into her bag and pulled out another package of jerky.

I rolled my eyes and faced the front again to see our other classmates starting to file into the room. I recognized a few people from the year that I lived in Seattle in the third grade and went to Ridgeway Elementary. The tall redheaded girl that smiled at Sam and me when she walked into the room was Wendy Schuler. And the chubby shirtless boy couldn't have been anyone but Gibby Gibson, possibly the strangest boy I'd ever met. He was always very nice though. He must have recognized me because when he saw me he waved emphatically. I waved back just as another familiar face came into the room. Two familiar faces, actually, but one of them wasn't a sixth grader.

"Hello," said Mrs. Benson, leading Freddie into the room and towards Ms. Briggs. Mrs. Benson extended her hand. "I'm Marissa Benson. My son Freddie has been assigned to your homeroom and I just want to make sure that your classroom is up to all the safety and health codes." Freddie's face turned crimson.

"Well, Mrs. Benson," said Ms. Briggs with a lemon-pie smile, "you have nothing to worry about. I always make sure that everything in my classroom is as safe and as clean as possible…for the children."

"Oh, good!" Freddie's mother said. "I'm glad someone understands. Now if you'll just let me do a quick inspection–"

"That won't be necessary," said Ms. Briggs, a little too quickly. "Trust me, Marissa – may I call you Marissa?" Mrs. Benson nodded, and the creepy teacher leaned closer and lowered her voice just enough that Mrs. Benson wouldn't realize that everyone could still hear her. "Marissa," she whispered, "Freddie is in good hands. But if the other kids see how protective you are – not that you don't have his best intentions in mind of course – but, well, the other kids might give him a hard time. And we wouldn't want that would we?"

"No, of course not!"

"Marissa, I've been a teacher for nearly thirty years, and I know how cruel kids can be. I think that if you really want what's best for your son, you'll leave."

Mrs. Benson sighed. "I suppose you're right. Freddie," she turned her son around to face her, "I'll be back to pick you up at 3'oclock sharp. Be sure to wash your hands before you eat and stay away from sick people."

"Yes Mom," said Freddie, looking like he'd rather be just about anywhere else.

"That's my good Freddiebear," Mrs. Benson smiled. She turned and walked to the door. "I'll see you this afternoon. Love you! Make good choices!"

"Yeah. Love you too," Freddie mumbled. I heard a few snickers as Mrs. Benson walked away, most of them from Sam. Freddie tried to cover his face as he made his way to the back of the classroom and attempted to become invisible.

As soon as Mrs. Benson was out of sight and earshot, Ms. Briggs' fake smile turned back into a scowl. "Alright maggots!" she barked, making several people in the class jump and Gibby whimper. "You may think that sixth grade is going to be just like elementary school, with soft teachers who are too dizzy from paste fumes to know when you need disciplining? Well I have news for you." She picked up a ruler and walked over to Sam, who had somehow managed to fall asleep in the fifteen seconds between the time that Mrs. Benson left and Ms. Briggs began her rant. "WRONG!" she shouted, simultaneously slapping the ruler on Sam's desk.

"I'm up! I'm up!" Sam said sleepily, her eyes still mostly closed. Ms. Briggs scowled.

"Middle school is nothing like elementary," she continued. "And as much as I hate it – because I know it will probably lead to the complete demise of everything good in the world – you children will be adults soon, and it is high time you started being treated as such. That means that if I ever catch any of you sleeping," she slapped Sam's desk again, "crying for Mommy," she shot a look at Freddie, "cheating, mouthing off, eating, making noise, having fun, or in any way enjoying yourself, you WILL be punished." The creepy smile returned to Ms. Briggs' wrinkled old face. "Is that clear?"

"Yes Ms. Briggs," the class said in unison.

"Good." She held up a stack of papers and then dropped it on an empty desk at the front of the room. "Here are your schedules and locker assignments. Form a line, come and find the paper with your name on it, and then GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!"

The bell rang and we all hopped out of our seats and found our schedules as quickly as possible before sprinting out of the room. "And no running!" Ms. Briggs called after us. "Miserable little brats."

"So what locker did you get?" Sam asked as we slowed our pace to a fast walk.

"Three fifty-five. You?"

"Three fifty-nine."

"Sweet! I'll only be two lockers away!"

"I just hope the person who gets the locker between us isn't a nub."

"Sam! Be nice."

"I won't and you can't make me," she said, though we both knew I was probably the only person who _could _make Sam act remotely nice.

"Hey, looks like three fifty-seven already found his locker," I said as we found our lockers and noticed a boy with his head in the locker between ours, already transferring books and what looked like tech equipment into it. "Hey, that looks like…uh oh."

Freddie pulled his head out of his locker. He looked at me first and smiled, but when he saw Sam standing next to me his smile faded and his eyes grew wide. "Uh oh," he said. He tried to make a run for it, but before he could Sam grabbed him by the shoulder and slammed him into the lockers.

"Look, nub," she said. "As you might have guessed, I have no interest in ever seeing your face again, and you sure as heck don't want to see mine unless you happen to have a death wish. So you're going to trade lockers with Carly here." She nodded in my direction. "That way, we never have to stand within a foot of each other again."

"What if I don't want to move to a different locker?" he said. Sam raised her eyebrows in surprise. I have to admit, I was pretty surprised myself. I'd seen grown men cower in my best friend's presence. And even though he was trembling noticeably and his voice was small and shaky, Freddie had done something that I'd never seen anyone else even imagine doing to Samantha Puckett: defy her.

"_What _did you say, you little dork?" Sam's eyes flashed anger and her voice became a low growl. Freddie shook harder.

"W-well…it's j-just that…I already m-moved most of my stuff into t-that locker. I-It would be d-d-difficult to move it into a new one and still be on t-time for first p-p-period."

"Oh I'm sorry," Sam cooed. "I didn't mean to make it sound like you had a choice in this. Let me try again." She shoved him into the locker a little harder and brought her face within an inch of his. "GET YOUR FREAKISH NERD CRAP OUT OF THAT LOCKER NOW OR I'LL TAKE YOUR PRECIOUS BOOKS AND SHOVE THEM UP YOUR–"

"Sam!" I warned. She shot a wary glance back at me and sighed.

"Fine," she said, turning her attention back to Freddie. "You have until tomorrow to move out of that locker. But don't think I'm going to keep letting you off easy like this."

Freddie nodded quickly and she released him with a shove. He took off for his next class just as the tardy bell rang.

"Stupid nub," she mumbled as we walked to our first period English class together. I glanced at her and noticed she seemed a little off. Usually after she gave someone a tongue lashing she went right back to her usual carefree self. But now she looked bothered, and I had to wonder if my warning was the only thing that made her let Freddie go. I got the feeling that it wasn't just me; that this really was the first time anyone had stood up to Sam.

I was just about to ask her if that was why she was still mad, when I noticed something weirder and more unexpected than anything else that had happened during my already weird morning. I glanced at Sam again to make sure it wasn't just my imagination, and sure enough I was right. The right corner of Sam's mouth was tugged upward ever so slightly, forming a small but noticeable smile.

_**Present**_

"So what, she was happy that the little punk stood up to her or somethin'?" Irene must have then remembered that she didn't want us to know she was paying attention because she went back to cleaning the tables before I could respond.

Ana flicked her eyebrows up but didn't say anything about Irene's fleeting interest in our conversation. "So did you ever ask her about it?" she asked.

"No, I knew Sam well enough to know that she wouldn't take a question like that very well. As far as anyone knew, she hated Freddie Benson with all her heart. And I think she would've liked for it to have stayed that way."

"Did it?"

"Huh?"

"Did people continue to believe that she and Freddie hated each other?"

"Well…for a while they did. Sam was horrible to Freddie, and Freddie, for what it was worth, could be pretty harsh too when Sam went too far. He continued to be the only person who would stand up to her, no matter how bad he was at it. It drove Sam crazy. They kept trying to avoid each other, but stuff kept happening that made them accidentally meet…or at least I think it was an accident. I'm really not sure of anything anymore. Heck, even I thought they hated each other for years after their first meeting, and I was their best friend."

"What made you think differently?"

"Well, you see, when we were in the eighth grade we decided to start this web show – iCarly. Sam and I were co-hosts and Freddie was our tech producer. It started out as just a fun little project but pretty soon iCarly was more popular than any of us ever dreamed.

We had a lot of fun on that show, all the way until our very last episode about a month ago. But there were a lot of bumps along the way, and none of them were worse than the time that Sam used the power of iCarly to finally push Freddie over the edge."

_**December 27, 2008**_

"Hey! Hey!" said the talking foot on the computer monitor. "I'm not here for your entertainment! I'm a foot! Leave me alone!"

"Oh foot," I laughed, taking a bite of the cookie I had gotten for a snack. I barely noticed when the front door creaked open behind me.

"Hey Carly," whispered a voice. I turned around in my seat to see Freddie peeking his head through the door.

"Oh, hey," I said, pausing my Splashface video. I wasn't surprised that Freddie had barged in without knocking or asking for permission. He and Sam were frequent visitors to my apartment. It would have been weirder if he had knocked.

"Is Sam here?" he asked, still not coming all the way into the room.

"No," I gave him a questioning look. Something fishy was going on. "Why?"

He stepped into the apartment and locked the door behind him with the chain lock. "'Cause I pulled a prank on her."

"YOU PULLED A PRANK ON SAM?" I shouted. _That's it. _I thought. _Freddie's lost it._

"Uh huh."

"What, are you tired of living?" I asked. "Why would you mess with Sam?"

"'Cause she put a dead fish in my locker!" he whined. "Smell this!" He held his backpack up for me to sniff.

"No, gross! I don't want to smell your fishy backpack!" I swatted at the offensive bag and he put it away. "What prank did you play on Sam?"

Just then, the front door opened again, this time much more violently than the first. "OPEN THE DOOR!" yelled Sam through the opening. It was a good thing the chain lock prevented her from opening it all the way.

"Call the police," said Freddie, hiding behind me.

"OPEN THIS DOOR!"

"Leave me alone Sam! We're even!"

Sam screamed in anger and ripped the chain lock off the door. She stomped into the room, dragging a terrified Gibby behind her. "COME HERE BENSON!"

"You handcuffed her to _Gibby_?" I asked in disbelief. _Yep. He's definitely gone completely and totally insane._

"She put a dead fish in my locker!"

"Gibby's way worse than a dead fish!" said Sam.

"My mom thinks I'm AWESOME!" Gibby defended.

"GIVE ME THE KEY!"

"Give her the key," I told Freddie.

"Only if she promises—"

"AAAAHHHHHHH!" Freddie was cut off by Sam's battle cry as she charged at him. He tried to run, but it didn't take her long to catch up and pin him to the kitchen table.

"Ow, my arm!" he complained.

"WHERE'S THE KEY?"

"In my front pants pocket, left side!"

"Get the key out of his pocket," she told me.

"Okay." I reached to get the key, then backed up, suddenly realizing the implications. Freddie's crush on me had waned a lot in the three and a half years since we'd met, but he was still a teenage boy. "Ew, no."

"Just let me up and I'll give you the key," he choked.

"PLEASE!" shouted Gibby.

Sam reluctantly let Freddie go and he got the key out of his pocket. "Now unlock me!" she demanded.

He did as she said. As soon as they were free, Gibby ran out the door screaming.

"Like Gibby's therapist didn't have enough to deal with!" I shouted, anger welling up inside of me.

As mad as I felt, Sam looked madder. She grabbed Freddie's collar violently, anger flashing in her icy stare.

"Come on," he tried to reason. "You put a dead fish in my locker; I handcuffed you to Gibby. We're even!"

"Yay!" I said, trying to distract Sam, who I knew wouldn't take the whole 'even' thing very well. "Who wants lemonade?"

"I don't play to get even," said Sam, pulling Freddie closer. "Momma plays to win." She let him go with a careless shove. "I'm gonna get you," she said, backing away. "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But I'm gonna get you."

And get him she did.

* * *

><p>Sam's revenge was worse than any of us could have imagined. Apparently she'd overheard a conversation Freddie and I had been having a few days before and, well…the results weren't good.<p>

"Freddie's never kissed a girl," she'd said into the camera with a triumphant smirk. "Never, not once. I heard him say so myself, and Carly's a witness."

Freddie didn't take it well. For once, the boy who always stood up to Sam had backed down.

That night, I told Sam she'd ruined Freddie's life. "Eh, he's fine," she said. When he didn't show up at school for the third day in a row, I told her again. She just shrugged it off. I told her again that she'd ruined his life when he didn't show up to iCarly rehearsal that week. Still she didn't believe me.

Friday night, when Freddie's absence from the show marked a full week of reclusive behavior, I told Sam again, though I knew it was pointless. Sam was just too stubborn to admit that she was wrong, especially when it came to Freddie. I'd never get through to her.

"You really hurt him," I said, not even trying to hide the bitterness I was feeling towards my friend. "Every time he leaves the house he gets teased because _you_ told the whole world he's never kissed anyone!" Sam looked away. "You know he won't even talk to his mom?" Apparently that caught her attention, because she looked back at me and raised her eyebrows in surprise. "He just sits on the fire escape alone 'cause he's too embarrassed to see anyone," I said. "You like ruined his life and you don't even care!"

"Alright," she groaned, getting up from her beanbag chair. "I'll go apologize."

"It doesn't even matter if you apologize!" I shouted, too angry to care that I'd finally gotten through to her. "Kids are still going to give him a hard time 'cause you can't take back what you said!"

"Look, I didn't mean–"

"You went too far this time," I said. My phone beeped, signaling one minute until show time. "We've gotta start the show."

"How can I do the show now that you've made me all depressed?" she asked.

"I don't know," I spat. "Just get up there and do it." I walked to Freddie's laptop and set everything up the way Freddie taught me to if he was ever gone during a show. I joined Sam in front of the camera and tried to put on my happy face. "In five, four, three, two…"

"I'm Sam!"

"And I'm Carly!"

"And this is iCarly."

"The only web show that contains no trans fats…" I started.

"And keeps kitty's litterbox smelling fresh all day."

"And now, what you've all been waiting for…"

"Carly and I are about to have our very first–"

"MEATBALL WAR!" we shouted in unison.

"We have our slingshots," said Sam.

"And a hundred meatballs." We both lifted up the heavy meat-filled bowls to show the viewers.

"But, um, before we start our meatball war…" Sam said, "I wanna say something." I didn't respond, but I knew she got the message. She stopped the music and stepped forward.

"On the last iCarly," she started, "I told you guys that Freddie had never kissed anyone. And that was really personal…and I shouldn't have said it on the show." I nodded. I knew it probably wouldn't do much good, but at least Sam had finally swallowed her pride and apologized. Only…she wasn't done.

"And for all you people out there who've been teasing Freddie about it, lay off! 'Cause I bet a whole lot of you haven't kissed anyone either." She paused. "Including me." She looked back to see the surprise on my face. I never expected her to go that far with it. "Yeah, that's right. I've never kissed anyone. So if you wanna tease someone about it, tease me." _Wow, _I thought. I'd never seen Sam like this. It was like all of a sudden she was a completely different person. "Which is a bad idea unless you live near a hospital!" _Ah, there she is._

Sam backed up and looked at me expectantly. "Um," I said, still a little in shock, "our meatball war will be happening soon, but for now, please enjoy this photo of a man with shrimp up his nose. I rushed to put the picture on the screen so Sam and I could talk.

"That was amazing," I said. Sam looked down at her shoes. "You lied so people would stop teasing Freddie."

She shrugged. "I didn't lie."

"Wait…" I said. "You mean you've never actually kissed someone?"

"You shocked?"

"Well yeah, but only because you always seemed so…willing."

She smiled sadly. "I'm gonna go talk to Freddie," she said, setting down her blue remote and starting for the door before pausing and looking back. She picked up one of the large bowls on the table. "I'm taking these meatballs."

_**Present**_

"It would be years before I found out what really happened when Sam went to talk to Freddie, but even then I knew I had been wrong about her hating him. She wouldn't do nice things for just anyone, much less something so nice that it put her reputation at risk worldwide."

"So you realized that Sam didn't really hate Freddie," said Ana. "What about Freddie? He didn't really hate Sam, did he?"

"No, but I'd suspected that for a while. Freddie was too nice to hate people unless they were truly awful, and I knew that he knew Sam wasn't all bad. He kept doing things that suggested he didn't really hate her all the time. Laughing at her jokes, occasionally supplying her with food, calling her his friend in public. Once he even gave up a sixth month cruise that he won to my ex-friend Missy, just to get rid of her because Sam didn't like her. So I eventually got the picture that they actually cared about each other. I just…I never thought they liked each other as anything but friends…or frienemies I guess."

"They kissed, didn't they?" asked Irene. By now she wasn't even pretending to clean the tables, but sitting at a table not too far away with her arms folded over her chest and a smirk on her thin lips.

"Huh?" I said.

"That night. You said it would be years before you found out what _really _happened when she went to talk to him. They shared their first kiss, didn't they?"

"Yeah," I said. "They did. I didn't take it very well when I found out, but they assured me that it was just to get it over with and that it meant nothing. The liars."

_**April 9, 2011**_

I stood with my arms crossed as I watched Gibby press buttons on my PearPad. I didn't know exactly what he did to the sensory stimulus chamber we'd somehow persuaded my brother to lock himself inside of for our science experiment, but it made Spencer cry.

"Carly?" said a voice behind me. I didn't even need to turn around to see who it was.

"Freddie, do I meddle too much?" I asked.

I could see that he wasn't really sure how to respond to that. "Well…um…I think…"

"Just say it. I meddle too much."

"Okay. You meddle too much." I sighed and looked down at my shoes. "But your intentions are good!"

"But good intentions didn't stop Sam from getting mad at me." I said. "I just want her to be happy."

"I know. But…maybe Sam wants to find her own happiness. You know, without having someone else do it for her."

"I…I guess I didn't think of that."

"But if the only problem is that she really is too scared to express her feelings…well, maybe instead of just leaving her alone with a guy and hoping she'll overcome her fears on her own, maybe someone should actually talk to her about it."

"Yeah, but I don't think she's going to want to listen to me anymore. I already messed things up once tonight."

"I'll talk to her," he said.

"Freddie, you don't have to–"

"I _want _to talk to her, okay?"

I nodded. "Good luck." He would definitely need it.

"Thanks," he said, power-walking out of the room and down the hallway. I sighed and leaned my head on Gibby's shoulder.

"Hey," he said, looking down at me. "You okay?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Just tired."

"Of staying up so late working on this experiment or of the whole love-hate thing between Sam and Freddie?"

I lifted my head to look at him. "What whole love-hate thing?"

"Come on Carly," Gibby said. "Everyone knows Sam and Freddie have a thing for each other."

"What? That's crazy! That's…that's…" Gibby just raised his eyebrows knowingly. I sighed. "Oh, since when are you all full of wisdom?"

"I have my moments," he smirked. "Like the time I convinced Tom Zuckercorn to create that MyBook website."

"What?"

"You remember. That guy we saw outside of the Groovy Smoothie that one time? The one with PearPhone?"

"Gibby?"

"Yeah?"

"That was a hobo. And he was holding an actual pear."

"Oh yeah. I wonder how he's doing."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm going to go see if Freddie managed to find Sam."

Freddie _had_ managed to find Sam, but I decided it was probably best not to disturb them. They were out in the courtyard, apparently having some intense discussion. I was just about to leave when something happened that I never, in a million years, would have expected. I watched in complete and total disbelief as Sam grabbed Freddie by the collar…

And kissed him.


	5. The Rise and Fall of Seddie

**Hi! So you know how (about a billion years ago) I said this chapter would be up soon? I lied. Sorry! It wasn't on purpose, I promise. College apps took over my life last winter, and since then I've been busy with other senior year-ish things and have kind of been putting this off over and over. I haven't even watched the show in months. I almost abandoned it completely, but then I remembered that I promised I would never do that mid-story, and I don't like to break promises. So, if anyone out there still wants me to, I will catch up on the show and finish this story. Let me know what you would like me to do.**

**There are a few more things I have to tell you at the bottom, but for now I'll just let you get on with the story. I don't own iCarly.**

"Oh no she didn't!"

Ana and I glanced over at Irene, who was now leaned forward in her seat, all pretenses gone.

"Irene," said Ana, "would you like to join us at this table?"

"Oh." Irene straitened in her seat and crossed her arms. "Nope. No thank you. I'm just fine over here."

I rolled my eyes but had to smile. Irene definitely wasn't anything like I originally thought. She tried her best to act like she didn't care, but she was horrible at it. I was starting to see why Ana had grown to like her.

"So what happened next?" asked Ana.

"Well, nothing for a while. Literally. I didn't even see Sam the next day. Or the day after that. After three days with no sign of Sam, Freddie and I started freaking out. That was when Freddie had the idea of tracking her down with her PearPhone ID."

"You can do that?" said Irene.

I nodded. "Apparently."

"Well? Where'd you find 'er?"

I glanced at Irene, who had once again forgotten to pretend to be disinterested, and shrugged. "Troubled Waters Mental Institution."

_**April 2011**_

I guess I expected finding Sam to solve all our problems immediately. Deep down, I think I knew she wasn't going to just come home with us and live happily ever after with Freddie, but I can't say I wasn't still disappointed when things didn't go well.

At first, Sam was angry and didn't want to leave. Then, after we finally talked her into coming home with us, the nurse at Troubled Waters wouldn't _let _her leave. A few hare-brained schemes and one cross-dressed Spencer later, and we were filming iCarly from a crazy house. But the people at Troubled Waters were almost sane compared to the events that went on that night.

"How I feel is important too," Freddie said, halfway through what should have been a video chat with a fan but was instead some plan of Freddie's. Whatever he was up to wasn't going well.

"Okay Benson, we get it," said a clearly annoyed Sam. "You want to humiliate me on the web in front of millions of people, go ahead and just do it. I don't care! Get back at me for all the mean things I've—"

Sam never finished her sentence, but Freddie finished his plan. It worked out better than any of us had expected.

_**Present**_

"Hookin' up in a crazy house." Irene let out a breathy chuckle. "Well if that ain't the damnedest thing I've ever heard."

"Tell me about it," I said. "That's just the kind of thing they would do, too." I couldn't help but smile a little bit. "No one ever said my friends were normal. But even crazier than how they got together was the fact that they _stayed _together. Don't get me wrong; there were plenty of bumps along the way – many of which I was dragged right into the middle of – but, for the most part, they got along better than I ever imagined. There was only one time when I really thought they weren't going to make it. Some stupid argument about how Sam messed with his application to tech camp before they were even dating. Freddie was pretty mad, but even that blew over." I paused, looking down at the table sadly. "I never dreamed that I would be the reason they finally broke up."

_**October 2011**_

It was cold in the apartment when I woke up. I rubbed my eyes and glanced out my bedroom window to see the window covered in a thin layer of frost; the temperature had dropped overnight. It was a struggle to force myself to throw the cozy comforter off of my body and let my feet hit the cold floor, but it helped to wake me up. Pulling on my robe and slippers, I made my way to the kitchen to make some coffee.

When I pulled the top off of the coffee container I was met with the disappointing inside of an empty red jug. Spencer had forgotten to pick up coffee again. There was no point in asking him to go get some more; Spencer wouldn't be up for another few hours, and I couldn't drive his motorcycle. With a sigh, I closed the container and called the elevator. There was a space heater in the studio that Freddie's mom made us keep there in case the heat ever went out during a webcast. (She couldn't risk Freddie getting hypothermia. It seemed crazy at the time, but the little heater had actually proven to come in handy from time to time.) The elevator arrived on the top floor of the loft and the doors slid open.

Instead of being met by an empty room as I had expected, I walked into the studio to find a sleeping Sam curled up on a red beanbag, still wearing the clothes she had been wearing the day before.

"Sam."

No response.

"Sam," I repeated, nudging her shoulder with my toe.

"Unnnngggggggg," she groaned, burying her head further into the beanbag.

I sighed and knelt down by her ear. "Bacon," I said.

"Hm?" she said, jolting upright, her eyes still droopy as they searched the room for her snack. When her eyes found me, they stopped darting around and became fixed with a look of disappointment. "There is no bacon, is there?"

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't know how else to wake you up."

"You could have at least made me some real bacon," she grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I'll make you some now," I laughed, grabbing the space heater from behind Freddie's tech cart and calling the elevator again. I glanced back to see Sam standing in the middle of the room, staring blankly into the distance. "Coming?" I asked.

"Why did you wake me up?" she asked, ignoring my question. I thought I heard just a tiny bit of bitterness in her voice.

"You were sleeping on a beanbag chair in the same clothes you wore yesterday."

"So?"

"The last time you did that was the night after your dad left."

Her eyes fell to the floor. "So…how 'bout that bacon?" she said. I walked over and put my arm around her shoulders, leading her to the elevator.

"So?" I said when we were in the kitchen, Sam sitting at the bar while I rummaged through the refrigerator for a pack of bacon. Luckily, we did have that. I grabbed a frying pan from a cabinet and proceeded to prepare the breakfast meat. "What happened?"

"Freddie and I…" she started. "I broke up with Freddie."

"What? Why?" I asked. "Was this just another stupid argument? Because you know you could have come to get me. I'll talk to Freddie today and we'll straighten this whole thing out, just wait and see."

"No, Carls," she sighed. "It…it wasn't like that. It was…peaceful."

"Peaceful? We are talking about you and Freddie, right?"

She rolled her eyes. "I'm serious. We…it just wasn't working."

"What do you mean it wasn't working? You and Freddie seemed fine last night."

"Please, can we stop talking about this now?"

"I just don't see why –"

"I said drop it! Okay?"

I felt my jaw snap shut. "Fine," I said, and turned my attention back to the bacon.

It was Freddie who finally told me why they broke up when I saw him at school on Monday.

That day, I decided never to give anyone relationship advice ever again.

**Okay. So I guess I should also tell you what I expected when I started writing this story and now know for sure: this will be my last iCarly fanfiction. I may write for other shows in the future, but I think I've gotten all the goody out of writing for this fandom, and after I finish this story it will be time for me to move on. I truly have enjoyed writing for you guys over the last couple of years, and I hope you have enjoyed it as well. **

**See you next chapter.**


	6. The Way We Were and Are

**Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly.**

_**Present**_

"For a while, things started to look like they were getting better. Sam and Freddie both still hung out with me, though they didn't talk to each other as much. Occasionally they would start bickering like an old married couple and I would think that maybe, just maybe, things would just go back to the way they were before, but then they would realize what they were doing and go back to barely talking to each other again. They went back and forth like that all throughout our senior year and up until spring break, when Freddie suddenly came bursting through my front door with some news I definitely didn't expect…"

_**April 2012**_

"Guys!" The door swung open to reveal an excited-looking Freddie clutching his laptop so tight that his knuckles were turning white.

"Whoa, what's going on?" Sam said. "I haven't seen you this excited since the day your mom finally agreed to stop giving you bi-weekly tick baths."

Freddie's grin wavered for a moment, but then he looked at me and smiled again. "Guess who just sent me an email," he said.

"Who?"

"Look for yourself!" He handed me his laptop carefully. I couldn't help but notice the blonde hair that appear right behind my shoulder. "The Center for New Electronic Research and Development," I read aloud. "Wait," I said, "are these the same people in charge of that nerd camp you wanted to go to last summer?"

"N-E-R-D Camp," he corrected. "And yes. Read what they said!"

"Okay, okay! I'm reading." I cleared my throat. "Dear Mr. Benson," I said in my best posh accent. Freddie rolled his eyes. "We at the Center for New Electronic Research and Development, or C-NERD, wish to congratulate you on your acceptance to our prestigious summer program, the New Electronic Research and Development Camp!" I looked up from the screen. "Freddie!" I smiled.

"I know!" he grinned back, taking the laptop from me. "They said they were so impressed with my application this year that they decided to overlook all the stupid things that _someone _put on my application last year." Freddie glanced over my shoulder. I could practically feel Sam frown.

"Wow, so I guess you must have worked super hard on that application, huh?" I said.

Freddie raised his eyebrows knowingly. "Carly," he said. "I know what you did."

I looked around to see if I was missing something. Everything in the room looked like it always did. "What did I do?"

"Carls, I didn't even _finish _that application. I started it but had to put it off so I could finish my college apps. And I had been working on it in _your _studio."

"What are you saying?" I asked.

"I'm saying that I know you finished filling out my app for me!" he said. "Must have even written to them, because they said in the email that they were really impressed by the letter my _friend _had written them on my behalf."

"Freddie, I didn't touch your application."

He smirked in that lop-sided way he always did when he was trying to convince someone he wasn't gullible. "Uh, yeah, you did."

"No," I said carefully. "I didn't." Freddie's face fell slightly. "Really."

His mouth stayed open in surprise for a few seconds before it slowly closed shut and his eyebrows came together. "But…but if you didn't do it…" he started. "Who did?"

It was then that we noticed that Sam was no longer in the room.

* * *

><p>"I'm such a jerk." Freddie put his head in his hands and leaned his elbows on his knees, which were propped up on Sam's front steps.<p>

I turned my attention to Frothy, Sam's cat who was currently the only member of the Puckett house who wasn't ignoring us. "Yeah, well…"

"Carly!" he wailed.

"Sorry!" I apologized. "I mean, you're not a jerk. It was just a misunderstanding. It could have happened to anyone."

"How can you say that? I had no right to treat Sam like that over one little mistake she made over a year ago! I should have realized that she was only trying to make things right!"

"You're right, you should have realized that."

"Well how was I supposed to know?" he said, clearly exasperated.

I opened my mouth to respond, then shut it, then opened it again. "I'm sorry," I said. "What exactly do you _want _me to say?"

"I don't want you to say anything, Carly!" By then he was shouting, and he had gotten up from his place on the steps. "I don't want you to say anything, and I DON'T want you to get involved. IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. It's NEVER your business. But for SOME reason, you always seem to THINK it's your business, even when it's clearly NOT."

I stared at him. His face was red and his chest was rising and falling rapidly. After a moment, his shoulders relaxed and his faced softened. "That was me being a jerk again, wasn't it?"

I scratched Frothy behind the ears and nodded slightly. Freddie dropped back to the steps with a great _oomph _and resumed his head-in-hands moping.

"Carly?" he whispered.

"Yeah?"

"What am I going to do?"

I glanced back at the door to see if maybe Sam had decided to come outside when Freddie was making all that noise. There was no one there. "I don't know," I said truthfully.

Freddie sighed. "I just wish things would go back to the way they were before."

I turned my head to look at him, my gaze meeting the most melancholy pair of eyes I had ever seen. He looked so sad it was hard not to look away, but I made myself keep eye contact so he would know I really meant what I said next. "Me too, Freddie," I said. "Me too."

_**Present**_

The room was quiet except for the continued pounding of rain on tin. Though their mouths remained closed, I could practically see, hear, and feel the sympathy radiating from the tight lips and downward-cast eyes of the two older women sitting with me in the otherwise empty restaurant. There was no use in denying it; finding out that you had inadvertently caused your best friends pain, well, it hurt.

"So?" Irene finally whispered, breaking what I thought was going to be an endless silence. "What happened?"

_**June 2012**_

It had been nearly two months since Sam had last spoken to Freddie. At first it was awkward to go to school and do iCarly when they weren't speaking to each other, but after graduation and the uncomfortable farewell episode of our web show, we hardly saw each other anyway.

Sam in particular barely left her house anymore, and the only time I had seen her since we graduated was an accidental run-in at the grocery store. After a quick nod and a "hey," she had grabbed her cart and practically sprinted toward the nearest checkout.

Freddie had finally given up trying to get her to speak to him and was focusing all of his attention on packing for NERD camp and pretending like he didn't care about his ex-girlfriend's silence. I knew he did.

"You're going to have a great time," I told him on the day he was to leave for camp. He had come to my apartment around nine in the morning to say goodbye—knocking on the door instead of barging in for once—with a duffle bag slung across his shoulder and a clearly forced smile on his lips.

He nodded unconvincingly at my words. "Yeah. I'm sure I will." He glanced at the front door.

"Maybe she's just running late," I said. "Or she might not have gotten my text."

"Maybe," Freddie shrugged.

"FREDWARD BENSON!" A shrill voice cut through the silence. "IF YOU AREN'T IN THE CAR IN THE NEXT THREE MINUTES I'M GOING TO CALIFORNIA WITHOUT YOU!"

"Your mom's getting really good at yelling long distance," I said. "She could probably win some kind of award for that."

For a second I thought I saw Freddie's mouth quirk up in a real smile, but it was gone before I could be sure. "I'd…better go," he said.

"Yeah." I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear in an effort to stall while I thought about what in the world I should say. "I guess you should" was all I could manage.

Freddie cleared his throat. "Well. Um…" He moved in for a hug, not even bothering to set his bag down. It lasted for only a second, but it was so awkward it seemed to last longer. He stared at me for a moment longer before turning, mumbling a quick "bye," and walking out the door.

I half expected him to come running back through the door a minute later so he could give me a real hug and a real goodbye, but he never did. After nearly ten minutes of sitting on the couch and staring at the spot where my friend last was, I got up, went upstairs, and went to bed for the rest of the day.

* * *

><p>A week passed. Then two weeks. Then three. Freddie called occasionally to tell me about all the complicated and impressive-sounding technology he was getting to work with, and for the first time in two months, I actually thought he sounded genuinely happy. It was during one of these phone conversations that my front door swung open suddenly, revealing the person I wanted to see most but least expected to see.<p>

"Sam?" I said as she marched into the room, snatching the phone from my hand and hanging up on Freddie without explanation.

"What do you think you're doing?" I said, grabbing her by the wrist before she could get away or do any more damage. I was a little sickened to realize that Sam's wrist felt a good deal bonier than it should have.

"How come he always calls _you_?" she spat angrily.

"Huh? What are you…"

"Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about," she slurred. "I know you two have been talking behind my back. I have my methods."

"Sam," I said carefully. "Are you drunk?"

"Ah, what's it to you?" she said, throwing herself on the couch. I could smell the alcohol on her breath.

"Alright. That's it." I stood up. "I'm not going to have you barge in here drunk after two months of not talking to me just so you can accuse me of…you know what, I don't even _know _what you're accusing me of. Talking to my friend? No. I'm not putting up with this. I want you out of here. NOW."

I waited for Sam to either start screaming or storm out of the room, but she did neither. Instead, she did something I had only seen her do a handful of times and never expected to see her do again: she started to cry.

"Oh, Sam," I said, sitting down beside her and rubbing her back. It was every bit as frail-feeling as her wrist, and I noticed dark circles under her eyes when she looked up at me.

"Carly," she said finally. "I think I made a mistake."

Three hours and a cup of black coffee later, and we were on our way to San Francisco.

_**Present**_

"That's about it," I said. "We were on our way to California to get Freddie and Sam back together, it started raining, we stopped here, and Sam ran away."

"And you don't know why she would leave like that?" Ana asked.

I shook my head. "Second thoughts I guess. Does it matter? Knowing why she left won't bring her back."

"Alright! That's it!" Irene got up from her table and walked toward us. I thought she was going to try to kick me out again, but instead she just held out a brand new PearPhone in a pink case. "I bought this yesterday because I couldn't take one more day of being phoneless," she said to Ana before turning her attention to me. "You can use this to call your brother, or your friend, or whoever."

"Oh Irene," I said. "Thank you!"

"Yeah yeah," she muttered. "Just don't tell anyone I did something nice for some snot-nosed little punk. It'll ruin my rep."

I called Sam first. There was still no answer from her. Freddie didn't pick up either.

"Oh for Pete's sake," Irene said. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"My car. I can drive you where you need to go so you don't get in trouble with your brother, but I SWEAR this is the last time you're weaseling any help out of me. I only have so much nice left in me and I don't care to waste it all on punks like you."


End file.
